The Dawn Chorus / The Retrospective Soundtrack Players - Blogging all over the World

I'm not sure if I said all of these things, but I did definitely say most of them. John Earls is a lovely man, I hope to meet him in the flesh some day soon..........


By John Earls - "It's not a surprise the album is so concerned with death. The idea of mortality petrifies me."Ever since a demo arrived 18 months ago, Portsmouth country-rockers have been one of the most under-rated bands in Britain. Their album The Big Adventure was self-released, and they fit in tours around their day jobs."We're lucky," says singer Kyle Evans. "We don't actually mind our jobs."Kyle is a xxxxxxxxxx, and tried to keep his musical sideline a secret from his xxxxx."I'm impressed I managed it for a year," he laughs. "But when we played more and more local gigs, word was bound to get out."I enjoy xxxxxx. It'd have to be a very good label offer to get us to go full-time - I'd rather xxxxxx than be sat around doing nothing all day long."Such a down-to-earth attitude tallies with The Dawn Chorus' influences."I love The Decemberists, the Saddle Creek acts, who've had a steady rise," says Kyle. "For British bands, look at The Broken Family Band, who've released four albums with barely any publicity."Don't get me wrong, I'd love us to be like Radiohead or Arcade Fire, to have millions of people like us and keep the quality up. But we're realists."The Big Adventure was a way for Kyle to tackle his fear of death, but setting it to uplifting, brassy country-rock."With the music we write, you don't want the lyrics to be too chirpy," says Kyle, 24. "At the same time, you don't want to be too depressing."I write songs in batches, and hope a theme will emerge. I don't deliberately write concept albums, but it feels more of a body of work with a narrative."The band began two years ago, and at first were a regular indie band."Our keyboardist Paul joining was a massive change," recalls Kyle. "He plays trumpet too, and it added a new dimension to our sound. You think of how to incorporate them into the songs, not just having them as garnishes."My mum's tone deaf, but my parents had loads of cheesy '60s pop and I think that's where I get my love of melody."The band go on tour next week (yes, during half-term), and are already playing new songs done after the album."Doing this part-time, we appreciate gigs more when we do get to play them," muses Kyle. "We're at the stage now where we know what we're doing at gigs."We've got a mandolin player now too, and it looks like we'll strip our sound right down or get even more full-on next time. I just need a theme now..."